


The Vector of Your Devotion

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, May the 4th Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-30 11:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14496075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Leia likes the sweet boy who rescued her from the Death Star, but she's far too practical to fall in love with him. Probably.





	The Vector of Your Devotion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Petra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/gifts).



Leia was accustomed to being adored. She'd turned away suitors since she was too young to date. Some liked her for her beauty, others for her wealth or power. She assumed the sandy-haired boy rescuing her from the bowels of the Death Star adored her for the former, while his roguish friend was far more interested in the latter. She turned the pair of them around in her mind then dismissed any further thought about the matter. She had meetings to attend, and an evacuation to plan. She hadn't meant to join the Rebellion this fully. Now she had no other home.

"Where are we going?" Luke asked her, innocence in his eyes as he helped load crates onto the cargo ships.

"Are you sure you want to come with us?" Leia teased him back. "It might be dangerous." They hadn't released the coordinates of their next base to the rank and file yet. The last recon scouts hadn't returned yet, though they were in contact with Command.

"This is my only home now," Luke said, echoing her own thoughts too closely. He cast away the shadows in his words with a quick smile. "I'll go wherever you go."

Leia found herself smiling back at him, accepting the warmth of his friendly offer. "I can't imagine a better companion along the way."

* * *

Four bases, a dozen daring rescues, and a third of the fleet lost later, Leia had started to believe Luke was her good luck charm. As long as he was around, she wasn't safe, because none of them were safe, but she didn't die even when the odds were stacked so heavily against them Threepio's calculations gave out.

"Where are we going this time?" Luke asked her as they were packed like tinned fish inside a capital ship.

"Ord Mantell."

"Is that a good idea?" He posed the question as if he expected the answer to be no.

"It's as safe as we're going to get. The fleet has to split again. We'll rendezvous when we can find a better location."

Luke nodded. Then he rested his head against hers. She expected him to ask to stay with her group. Instead, she found herself saying, "I'll make sure you're assigned to my team."

"Good."

* * *

Hoth was frigid, and there was only so much fuel to go around. Leia told herself this was only for the sake of conserving heat. She reminded herself that no matter how much Luke adored her, no matter how much she relied on him for luck, this wasn't a permanent arrangement. A princess, even a princess from a ruined world, was expected to marry well, not bunk down with the first handsome face who made her pulse flutter.

"This is just to keep warm," Leia told him, wrapping herself in his welcome arms under the pile of blankets they shared. "Don't get any ideas."

"You know, if you really want to keep warm, we should invite Han and Chewie over. Chewie's like an enormous blanket all on his own." Luke's eyes teased her in the near-darkness.

Leia teased him back. "Have you slept with Chewbacca often?"

"Only when it's cold."

Leia knew what other people thought, and decided she didn't care. The Rebellion chugged along on gossip and caffeine. Let their tongues wag. They could freeze to the sides of the ships for all Leia cared.

"Are you sure about this?" Ahsoka asked her, joining her unexpectedly over breakfast in the chilly mess. She came and went, always finding their most secret locations, and vanishing again without word. Leia was in the top echelons of Alliance Command, and she still had no idea where Ahsoka went or what her missions were. Mon Mothma might. Leia did not.

"About what?" Leia asked. She hadn't gulped down enough caf yet today to deal with questions from her father's old friend.

"Luke."

"I thought you liked him."

Ahsoka smiled, but there was a sorrow in her eyes as she said, "He's a good man. Just like his father was." She'd known Luke's father back in the old days. She'd been a Jedi, too. Now she was something else, something different. She'd gifted Luke with stories of his father, parsing them out like sweets, but of his mother, she would only say that theirs would have been a secret marriage and no way for anyone to know for certain. Luke wasn't part Togruta. That's all Leia knew.

"It's fine. We're fine. He's my friend, that's all."

Ahsoka fixed her with a knowing stare as she drank her own caf. "I've had that same kind of friend. Be careful with your heart, Leia. Humans only get one apiece."

* * *

Luke swam in and out of delirium as Lando and Chewie guided the ship towards the rendezvous point. Leia's heart had never felt so battered. Her own hand throbbed where his poor stump hung, and for the rest of her life, she would always feel a strange tingling numbness in her right hand when she was tired or lonely or afraid. 

"Hey," she said as his eyes cracked open to meet hers again.

"Where are we going?" he asked her, his good hand clinging to hers as his thoughts had clung to her when he'd fallen.

"We're rejoining the fleet. We need to get you to a medical ship."

"Han's gone, isn't he?"

She nodded. That wound was as raw as the one she felt in her arm. "You should rest."

She watched him sleep, and watched his surgery, and watched the pain in his eyes that didn't fade even as his new hand was brought online. Lando and Chewbacca made plans, and she approved them, and still she watched Luke. Something in him was wrong, defeated.

"Talk to me," she said, after the others took the ship and started their search.

But Luke shook his head. "I can't. Not now. Not yet." He'd learned something when he'd left them, unlocked something about his powers or his past or both. Leia didn't know how she knew.

She kissed him, gently, sweetly. They'd slept together any number of nights yet the most that had happened was they'd wakened together and she'd affected not to notice his erection in the morning. She'd been careful with her heart.

Leia was tired of being careful.

She deepened the kiss, and felt him respond. Luke was in pain, and this wouldn't heal that pain, but it might ease them both for an hour or two. It was surely a long time overdue. The med suite offered just enough privacy. If his hand was still not under his full control, his adoration shone through in his eyes all the same, and his mouth was tender against hers as they coupled. Leia swallowed her moment of pain inside Luke's kiss. She could almost feel his wonder and his pleasure. Some Jedi thing, she thought, and then stopped thinking.

They kept their quarters together. Now that the barrier was crossed, they made love almost every night as they waited for word on what Chewie and Lando had uncovered, for word of where the fleet would go next.

Leia rested her head against his chest, and she promised herself they would not part again.

* * *

In the dancing firelight under the giant trees, Luke hid away from the rest of them while in their midst. Leia waited for him to find a reason to slip away, and a moment later, she found her own reason.

"Where are you going?" she asked him, too aware of how their last private conversation among these trees went. Neither of them had time for a broken heart yesterday, but Leia had cried all the same.

"I'm not sure. I'll stay with the fleet for now. You know we'll still have pockets of Imperials who won't accept this as defeat." That should be her line, she thought.

"We ought to talk. We need to talk."

"He turned at the end, Leia. He saved me."

"I don't care. I'm glad you're alive. That's all I need." She went to embrace him, but now that no one watched, he pulled back, face filled with a sorrow which murmured inside her too. Worse, his eyes wore the same adoration he'd held since the day they'd met. "Luke?"

"I am so sorry. I thought about not telling you at all to spare you. If it hadn't been for Vader, I wouldn't have." He looked away from her, his shoulders weighted by too many griefs. "I would have made an excuse to split away from you the next time the fleet moved. I would have stayed gone." He'd considered this for a long time.

"How long have you known?"

"Like you said, part of me has always known. Yoda and Ben told me the rest." Another thing Leia didn't pretend to understand: sometimes the spirits of Jedi lingered and continued to offer guidance to those who could hear them even after their physical deaths. Leia couldn't decide if the thought was heartwarming or horrifying. She didn't like the notion of being haunted even by a well-meaning ghost.

"It doesn't change how I feel, Luke."

"It changes everything," he said, and although the last time he left her with a kiss, this time he left her without a backwards glance.

* * *

The years were thick on his face, but even as worn out as she was, Leia could see the old adoration in Luke's eyes. He moved slowly and deliberately, making his way to where she sat. For a long moment, neither spoke.

 _"I missed you,"_ she thought at him as they used other words out loud for the benefit of the children around them.

_"I know. I'm sorry. I'm done running away from you."_

His Force projection kept Ben occupied while they fled, Luke holding her arm as she picked her sore, slow way through the caves. When the rocks lifted and her favorite old ship lay waiting for them, Leia held back for one more moment. She'd expected to die half a dozen times over the last few days, had definitely expected to die here. She let the kids board, standing back with Luke. He was with her here at last. She didn't need to run any longer.

Then he coaxed her towards the ship, and she let herself be loaded like an extra crate, settling into a seat as they zoomed away, cheating death one more time.

Luke sat beside her, ignoring the glances of awe he gathered from the survivors. He took her hand and squeezed. "Where are we going?"

"I have no idea." She rested against his shoulder. "And I don't care, as long as we go there together."


End file.
